As horror movies go, "The Conjuring" is an extremely skillful, entertaining remix album.

That's not an insult.

Director James Wan ("Saw," "Insidious") has crafted a wickedly effective horror crowd-pleaser -- taking well-worn elements of the genre (from a long list of classics including "The Exorcist," "Poltergeist" and "The Birds") and recombining them using solid actors, a minimum of splatter, and a carefully engineered sense of dread. It isn't particularly deep, but it's a grab-your-seatmate good time at the haunted house.

The movie fictionalizes the adventures of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga), most famous for the controversial "Amityville Horror" case that became a 1977 book and 1979 movie (and another influence on "The Conjuring").

Ed is a non-ordained demonologist -- in the exorcism game, sort of a cool private eye to the Catholic Church's police force -- and Lorraine's a clairvoyant with mental battle scars from a long-ago exorcism gone wrong.

Wilson and Farmiga underplay the couple as loving, supportive and smart. They ground the film, and probably will a sequel or two, given how well this one works and given the gallery of possessed objects Ed keeps in a locked office -- genie bottles waiting to be opened.

"The Conjuring" follows the Warrens' attempts to help a family in Maine (Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor and five adorable and well-sketched daughters) as they're menaced by a demon taking them in full '70s-horror style through the stages of "infestation, oppression and possession," as the Warrens helpfully outline for us on a chalkboard at one point.

What makes the film connect is the way Wan and his collaborators build trepidation through patient technique -- using character, shadows, anticipation, sound, music, point of view, camera moves and the opening and closing of doors rather than gore, excessive CGI or cheap shocks. (Well, okay, there are several shocks, but they're well-placed).

By the time things go bananas, as the Warrens would absolutely not put it, Wan has earned the right to make us nervous about the simple stuff: floating sheets, the opening of any door, the point just beyond the range of a light source, and assorted scary dolls and music boxes. Every ghost-story cliché in the book, in other words, made fresh using classic tools.